Chapter Text
You wish to travel these seas eternally?” The goddess looks at him like he's crazy. He probably is all things considered. “Such a reckless soul you are. Fine so long as there is a soul who sails under a Jolly Roger you shall live.”
The goddess goes to leave but hesitates. She looks back and sighs.
“Be warned Jack Sparrow, death is a mercy rarely granted to old Gods.” She warns before vanishing beneath the waves. He knows the warning is a final gift but he's reckless and excited. There's a whole eternity to get to know these waters.
**************
“The edges of the map are filling in, there's nowhere left to hide.” Beckett warned him. Before he laughed it off. Laughed as Davy Jones was thwarted. Laughed as Norrington gave up the chase. As Will and Elizabeth finally married. As Barbosa gave up being a pirate, a Privateer, a dad. Laughed as storms came and years passed. As Salazar met his end and the Trident broke.
In hindsight it was probably the Trident breaking that did it.
“Jack you reckless fool.” Calypso comes striding onto the beach looking rather serious. “You just destroyed the soul of the sea. You'll rue the day you did that. Maybe not now, but eventually.”
He hasn't seen her since. It's been almost three decades. The map was closing in. More islands found, the ‘newer’ pirates little more than bloody slavers. Isle de Muerta sinks below the waves and doesn't resurface.
The cave leading to the fountain of youth collapses and the mermaids sink into the depths. (He still catches glimpses now and then.)
He hides out in the Triangle, its curse a reassuring comfort. Yet even that fades. The map grows larger. (The areas to hide are smaller.)
Eventually he gives up and moves inland. The waters and magic of the Congo soothing. Their gods are vibrant and vicious in equal measure. He loves it. (But the edges of the maps are filling in.)
The colonizers move in. Slavers follow behind and the magic fades. (The stories can't be passed down if there's no one to pass them to.) The Gods retreat into the waters and don't surface again.
***************
He follows the compass to the southern Americas. The Amazon is amazing and brutal. Its tribes and wildlife welcome him with open arms. Their Gods are many and somehow survived Cortez. He spends ages there, learning and exploring.
“You are a God of adventure and mystery.” An old woman, so much like Tia Dalma and Calypso, tells him. “The sea will always call to you, though our waters are deep they aren't home.”
“The edges are filling in.” He mutters as he looks into his drink.
“Then make new ones.” She laughs. He smiles and heads to bed. Come morning there's no sign of the camp or the old woman. He laughs and takes to the waters again.
The Galapagos are stunning. Japan has him running, kitsune are rat bastards. The wilds of Russia are feral and the Norse gods party the best.
“You are an omen Jack.” Loki laughs, grin mischievous. “Good or bad doesn't matter. We all knew this day would come. At least mystery and adventure lives on.”
He sails to the Americas and runs with the spirits there. When folks move west he leads the way. When they settle South he greets the old ones there.
When they hunt and cage the locals or haul others in on ships he laughs as he frees them. So long as a single soul flies a Roger he'll never fall. It doesn't need to be on the seas, or water in general. (There's a village in Papau New Guinea that used a skull flag.)
“Why are you doing this?” A man asks. “I'll get in trouble for losing the cargo.” Jack just gives him a look and unlocks the last chain.
“People aren't cargo mate.” He laughs and the man flinches. The sound of fleeing horses echo and rumors spread. Highwayman Jack becomes a legend. (And a hero to some.)
*****************
When he finds his way back to the water he wants to scream. Coal has replaced wind as the power of choice. They took the sails out of sailing and he was pissed. However he was also desperate.
He takes to the water again and it's like coming home. He chases the horizon and no harm falls upon the crew. They call him lucky Jack. He feels anything but.
War comes, people fight and he survives. He's buried more crew than he can count and grows tired of the fighting. He seeks the small island used by the rum runners. The stash is long gone but it's familiar.
He spots a mermaid there, she's in rough shape. No words are exchanged though she does hiss at him. He doesn't blame her. (The edges are gone and only the deep remains.)
******************
He sleeps through another war. Discovers the horrors of the submarine. Sees his first factory and the sludge it produces. He watches as men learn to fly and then ascend to the stars. (Let's the last mer curse him out as her fins rot and the sea turns gray.)
He hasn't seen another God in years. He seeks their spaces. Haunts their temples and lurks in their peaks. The only one he finds is death. The reaper never laughs, just shakes their head and moves on.
“Lucky Jack.” It says one night. The camp around him is littered in the fallen. It's deceptively beautiful their sleeping forms, cold as lethal in this modern age as it was in his. “Not so lucky now eh? How many immortals have you seen fade away? How many graves have you dug?”
He never answers. Doesn't need to. He lost count ages ago. Stopped tracking the descendants of his old crew. Stopped seeking out those who fly the Roger. (He's disappointed in these modern pirates.)
**************
Society moves forward. Technology advances and he's taken to cryptid hunting. He doesn't find any…… …technically. He finds the ruins of Isle De Muerta, her treasures are still there but plundering one does nothing. He gifts the whole chest of gold to a road (beach) side museum on some tourist trap island. The owner laughs a familiar laugh and tells him an old family tale. (Will, Elizabeth and Barbossa's line lives on.)
He returns to Ponce de Leon and hopes to find the Fountain's cave. He follows the old map, one he found in a shop a few decades back. There's a lake there now, well a hot spring. Folks from all over flock to it, hoping the little dredges of remaining magic will cure them. (There's no magic left in this world, he's looked.)
*********************
More time passes and he has to be more careful. Fewer pirates fly the Roger these days. There are shows glorifying the golden days and their fans but none sail. It flies but there is no belief behind it. He feels his will draining.
There's barely any life left in these seas. The previously vibrant waters dull, their bounty thin and quickly failing. Jack Sparrow is a man on the run. The newer modern age makes it impossible to hide.
******************
The Roger still flies as a sign of rebellion but all the wars are digital, the crew spread across countries. People are both far more connected and yet they are more distant than ever. He watches as they fight, bleed and die for folks they've never met and wonders if breaking the Trident really caused this. (He knows it did. The sea was unusually tame after that day.)
He runs far and hides so deep in the mountains sea spray is a distant memory. He fights the call even as fewer flags fly.
“Why do you run Lucky Jack?” His personal reaper asks. “There are no edges left to explore. No secrets to uncover. Your domain is gone so why fight?”
He doesn't answer, just looks up at the stars. Watches as another rocket flies. As another planet is settled. His compass long since broken, the last drips of magic gone, only points up.
His reaper sighs and moves on. He was never one to go down without a fight. Though he might actually have to give in and learn about these stupid machines that poisoned his seas. (He apologizes to the faded memory of a disease ridden mermaid and the echoes of her curse.)
******************
They catch him twenty years later in a back alley bar in Singapore. The shop is older than him and run by an even older God. The man's magic is humanity's oldest vice and like Jack he's grown tired. And bored.
They accept the proposition and take to the stars. He feels when the edges take route and laughs as they explore. He forgets, for just a few decades, that the Roger lost its meaning. That his life had a time limit again. He gets lost in the adventure and joys of exploration. He's Lucky Jack again but in a good way. (He doesn't feel it when the last flag burns, the others do.)
Things go south fast and he doesn't hesitate to dive right in. His soul and body burn in the heart of a miniature star…but his crew survives and that's enough.
******************
He wakes in the black liminal space he knows belongs to the afterlife. Davy Jones of the abyss failed to greet him, probably died with the Trident. Everything did for all that he didn't realize it.
“𝐻𝑒𝑙𝑙𝑜 𝐽𝑎𝑐𝑘 𝑆𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑟𝑜𝑤. 𝐼'𝑣𝑒 𝑏𝑒𝑒𝑛 𝑤𝑎𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑦𝑜𝑢.” His personal reaper steps towards him, her long robes resting atop the black Sea.
“Come to make me a deal?” He defaults to his flirty persona and they laugh.
“𝑁𝑜, 𝑎𝑛 𝑜𝑓𝑓𝑒𝑟.” They purr, voice low and silky. “𝑁𝑒𝑤 𝑠𝑒𝑎𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑙𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑙𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑚𝑎𝑔𝑖𝑐 𝑡𝑜 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑠𝑒.”
Fool that he is, he agrees without thought. A new horizon to chase and islands to haunt sounds fun. (He'll miss space but the blue was always his home.)
“𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑦𝑜𝑢'𝑙𝑙 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒 𝑖𝑡 ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒.” They whisper. The last thing he remembers is a kiss to the cheek and falling.